A Little Milestone

I'm away from my resources, so I'm going to just write something personal. I remember when Amanda and I were dating. I was a pagan and she dragged me to church. I really enjoyed First Presbyterian of St. Petersburg. I particularly enjoyed it when one of the pastor's friends from a local seminary came by to teach our Sunday School class.

This guy thoroughly impressed me. I'm not sure that he even had his own copy of the text. He would ask us to read our various translations and then he would comment on the accuracy of them. He explained the Gnostic heresy to us and how that was a possible framework for what Paul addressed in the letter. I just remember being impressed by how much knowledge he had at his fingertips.

This morning in my small group we discussed 1 Peter. I am nowhere near that guy, but if I have a Greek and an English text I can do just fine. I feel like seminary is starting to pay off a little bit. Obviously I would be a lot more effective with the preparation we are supposed to do, but I could participate in a discussion over a familiar book pretty much off the cuff.

I realize that this may seem like an awfully proud post and maybe it is. I'm just excited that I am getting to a place where I always wanted to be. I don't think I'm quite there yet, but I sure am a lot more conversant with the text than I once was.

Changed by the Word

Like any other serious Bible-believing person, I say that I want Scripture to be my guide. I like to think that if Scripture says something that will settle the matter for me. However, a recent discussion in my small group brought the shallowness of my conviction to light.

We are going through J.I. Packer's tremendous book Knowing God. One of the chapters deals with the second commandment and the danger of making an image of anything in heaven. I wasn't there for the discussion, but I think the general tone was that Packer took his argument too far. Packer maintains that we shouldn't have images of Jesus, angels, etc.

Frankly, I had a hard time when I read that chapter too. However, it is difficult to argue with his logic as he reasons from Scripture. This is where the rubber meets the road. He is going up against a lot of contemporary Christian culture with this argument. We tend not to think of it as too big of a deal. However, the fact that it made the "big ten" tells us that God takes it seriously (I don't think Penn State will get added to that big ten).

I realize now what I'm looking for in a Bible study. I want something that will just maybe tweak me a little bit, but I don't want any massive spiritual surgery done on me. It's easy for me to look down my nose at others who don't want any drastic change done on them too. This is especially true when they don't want to hear about a doctrine that I hold dear to my heart. Yet I realize that I am just as hard-hearted in areas as well.

Getting Greek

I think that it is finally starting to click a little bit. We're doing Colossians in my small group and this week we're going to do Col 1:1-14. Lately our church has been doing an inductive study of the Sermon on the Mount. I had a hard time getting into the mechanics of it though. I enjoyed the discussion and I think it was valuable, but connecting the verbs and the objects seemed like tedious busywork.

I am willing to hear arguments that my attitude demonstrates a lack of humility on my part. However, I find that I spend a lot of time thinking about this stuff when I'm in Greek class. I don't think that putting a bunch of pretty colors on the page is going to solve anything for me. What I did instead was make a block diagram of the passage in Greek. I need to take another look at it before we meet tomorrow morning, but I think that this is going to be helpful for me. At the very least it is going to give me some good practice in making diagrams and reading Greek.

It's funny that I can do that but I am having a hard time finishing my reading of 1 Cor 14 that I need to do for class. I really need to get ahead in class as I have a very busy April ahead of me.

How Big is the Box?

We discussed 1 Corinthians 15 last night in my small group. We had a great discussion over this statement:
1 Corinthians 15:3 ESV
(3) For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,

We discussed what "first importance" means and got back to the centrality of the cross. This lead to a great discussion about denominations. One member comes from a Southern Baptist background, but he doesn't like being identified as a Baptist. He'd rather be identified as a Christian. I agree with him there. Another member bemoaned all the denominations. He has a point.

The problem is in how big we draw our "box". The "box" includes what we consider to be orthodox Christianity. An Independent Baptist would have a very tiny box. A Southern Baptist would probably have a larger one. Many Episcopalians would likely have a very large one. And so on.

My struggle is with doctrine. I'm all for sound doctrine. I believe it is incumbent upon every believer to form opinions about what Scripture means. Obviously Scripture can only mean one thing, though it can have many applications. However, as I've written before, I'd rather have an unsaved friend attend a Methodist church than no church at all. That wouldn't be my first choice, but as long as the gospel gets preached I don't really care if it is a lesbian preaching it. I trust the power of God's Word and, if someone reads it, he will realize that a lesbian couple really shouldn't be pastoring a church.

I guess what I've learned is that I need to form my opinions about doctrine. Systematic Theology is all about that and I really appreciate what I learned there (though it wasn't as fun as I'd hoped it would be). As a small group leader and eventual pastor or professor I need to teach what I believe the Bible says and means. However, I also need to respect differing opinions in areas that aren't clear. We talked a little bit about eschatology last night and someone asked me what I believe and I honesty answered that I don't know. I don't have a strong opinion on the matter. Frankly, this is out of laziness in not wrestling with the text on my own.

My church tends to err on the side of grace. My impression is that the church with which my seminary is affiliated tends to err on the side of legalism. I guess the trick is to walk the line.

Community

I have my small group meeting tonight. We'll gather at a house less than a mile from my house, enjoy an informal meal and dessert, share what is going on in our lives, and spend some time studying 1 Corinthians 15. I've grown to the point where I really enjoy having these meetings, although there are many Thursdays when I don't feel like doing it. Sometimes it feels like just one more thing to do when I could be studying, resting, playing, etc. I'm finally learning that God was serious when He established the local body of believers. Just about every week I leave with something of a rush from connecting with these guys.

What's really cool is when we see someone being changed by the Word. I'm a big one for talking about how the Word shapes us, but it's really powerful when we see it in action. We have a variety of crises going on in the group at any one time and it is wonderful to see men helping each other deal with life in a biblical way.

One of the problems of attending what I call a "Big Ten Church" is that it is easy to remain anonymous. You can slip in the back on Sunday and slip out again with only the greeters noticing your presence. This is not the ideal for a church, so we encourage the small groups. Fortunately, we also train the small group leaders and ask them to report on their groups after each meeting so that the leaders have some sense of what is going on.

I cannot recommend small groups highly enough. My life is just better because of my small group. Unfortunately, it looks like I'm going to have a conundrum this fall as I will have a class on Thursday nights.